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  Blind God's bluff

  ( Billy Fox - 1 )

  Richard Lee Byers

  Richard Lee Byers

  Blind God's Bluff

  CHAPTER ONE

  It wasn’t weird that I was running away. It was weird that I met a man with no eyes running in the opposite direction.

  A few minutes earlier, I’d come out of the Columbia Restaurant with a stomach full of swordfish and wine. I had no business eating there, but I was so deep in debt that paying for an expensive supper hardly seemed to matter.

  Blowing the rest of my cash at Bobbi’s, my favorite cigar bar, didn’t feel like it would matter, either. So, a little buzzed, I ambled down Seventh Avenue, past other Cuban and Italian restaurants, vintage clothing shops, botanicas, and candy cane-shaped wrought-iron lampposts. Since it was a weeknight, there weren’t too many people on the sidewalk. But some of the bars had live music even so. Death metal pounded through a closed door. Jump blues strutted out an open one.

  I stopped to listen to some of the latter. The guy on trumpet was good. And as I loitered there, I happened to look on down the street to the spot where my ’57 Thunderbird was parked. What I saw gave me a jolt that sobered me right up.

  Pablo and Raul, the Martinez brothers, were waiting by the car. Worse, Raul spotted me at the same moment I spotted them. Big as a dumpster and just as charming, he gestured for me to come on. When I didn’t, he spoke to Pablo, who then lumbered toward me.

  Pablo was even bigger than his brother, his bowling ball-size muscles, receding hairline, and the hair-trigger viciousness in his piggy eyes proof of the life-changing power of steroids. Could I handle him, and the tire iron he carried around in a gym bag, too?

  It wasn’t absolutely impossible. Hell, I’d seen combat in Afghanistan and come out of it in one piece. But even if I managed to get in touch with my inner Extreme Cagefighter, it wouldn’t solve anything. It would only escalate the situation. I turned and walked back the way I’d come.

  Pablo followed.

  I considered ducking into one of the bars. But I had a hunch that if Pablo caught up with me, he’d likely try to beat my ass no matter how many witnesses were watching, and I wanted to avoid getting cornered. I scurried down the narrow alleyway between two brick buildings.

  At the other end was the branch campus of Hillsborough Community College, the boxy cinder-block classroom buildings a clunky contrast to the old Latin architecture in the rest of Ybor City. I jogged across a parking lot to the nearest one and started trying doors.

  Locked. Locked. Unlocked, but because a class was in session. The professor, a chunky, middle-aged ex-hippie chick with gold-rimmed glasses and long gray hair, broke off her lecture to frown at me.

  “Sorry,” I said, closing the door. I glanced around. Pablo was stalking across the parking lot.

  Shit! I’d hoped I’d lengthened my lead by more than that. It wasn’t fair that someone so humongous could move fast.

  But I was pretty fast myself, and now that we were away from Seventh Avenue, and its cops and security cameras watching over the tourists, it was time to prove it. I ran flat out.

  Which took me into a tangle of streets lined with small, shabby one-story houses and duplexes-shacks, really-some built just a couple steps from the curb. It was what’s left of the Tampa of our grandparents, or great-grandparents, assuming they were working-class.

  I figured I could lose Pablo in that dark little slum. Then I’d just have to pray that he and Raul wouldn’t deliver their message by trashing the T-bird.

  My father had loved that car, I did, too, and visions of shattered headlights, battered Raven Black tailfins, and slashed Flame Red upholstery were almost enough to make me turn around and go back. But only almost. I kept moving ahead, and that was when I met the man with no eyes.

  I spotted a shadow moving in the patch of murk under the spreading branches of an oak. Thinking that Pablo had somehow gotten ahead of me, or that Raul had joined the chase, I faltered. Then the shadow stumbled out into the moonlight, and I saw that it wasn’t either of the thugs, or anybody else who could hurt me. The guy was old, skinny as a praying mantis, and wore grubby, badly fitting clothes like one of the homeless, not that I’m sure I noticed them immediately. It was hard to pay attention to much of anything except the empty sockets weeping blood where his eyeballs should have been.

  I wasn’t the kind of guy who volunteers at the Salvation Army or sends money to African orphans, and I had my own problems. But the old man had just had his eyes poked out! Hoping that I’d already shaken Pablo off my tail, I headed toward him.

  He heard me coming, cringed, lost his balance, and fell on his butt. “Easy,” I said. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m going to get you to a hospital.”

  At first, he didn’t answer. I realized he was sizing me up as best he could. He sniffed twice, like he could smell me from fifteen feet away.

  “You’re not part of it,” he said.

  “If you mean, I’m not whoever hurt you, you’re right. I’ve got my phone.” I reached into my pocket. “I’ll call 911.”

  I hadn’t done it to get Pablo off my ass, because that, too, would only have made my situation worse. But I could do it to get the old man an ambulance.

  Except that he said, “No! No police!”

  “No,” I said, “not the police. Doctors.” Meanwhile, I moved closer, into the butcher-shop smell of his blood mixed with his natural eye-watering funk. Closer in, I could see little wounds all over the top half of his face. They made his skin look like a sponge, and made me think it hadn’t been two big jabs that destroyed his eyes, but rather, dozens of little ones.

  “No authorities,” he said. He tried to get up. I took him by the arm and helped him, and then I could feel him shaking.

  “You need a doctor,” I said. “You could keep bleeding, or go into shock. You could get an infection.”

  But he wasn’t listening. He swiveled his head and sniffed. “Are they coming?” he asked.

  I looked around, saw nobody, and told him, “No, it’s fine.” I took out my phone, opened it, and punched in the numbers.

  The old guy grabbed for me, and, even though he had to grope, managed to get hold of my forearm. I tried to pull free without being too rough about it.

  Something zapped me. The sensation sizzled through my body, from the spot where he was gripping me, through my shoulders, and on up the arm that was holding the phone. Which broke apart in a flash of heat and a crackle.

  Reflex made me throw the pieces to the ground. “Shit!” I shouted.

  The man with no eyes let go of me. “I told you,” he said.

  I wasn’t really paying attention. I was busy looking at my hand, then using it to feel around my ear. I might end up with some blisters, but I didn’t think the little explosion-if that was the right word for it-had really hurt me.

  I wondered what the hell had just happened. It had certainly seemed like the old guy had done something to the phone, except that I knew it was impossible. The phone must have been defective, and caught fire on its own.

  “Get me under cover,” the old man said. “Inside somewhere.”

  “Good idea,” I said. I could call 911 on the phone in some helpful person’s home. I looked around for someplace that looked occupied, and didn’t look like a crack house. I spotted the blue glow of a TV shining through some curtains.

  I reached to take the old guy by the arm, then hesitated. Even though my brain insisted he couldn’t really have zapped me, my hand didn’t want to touch him.

  Footsteps thumped the uneven sidewalk. Sweaty, rumpled, and scowling, Pablo jogged out of the dark.

  By that time, I felt more annoyed than sorry for the old man. So I don’t
know why I didn’t just take off. Stubbornness, maybe. I’d made up my mind I was going to help him, and that was that.

  “It’s stupid to run,” Pablo said, huffing and puffing a little. “It only makes it worse.”

  “Can we do this later?” I answered. “Look at this guy. He needs to go to the hospital.”

  Pablo’s eyes flicked to the old man, then back to me. “Not my problem.”

  “Come on. Act like a human being for once in your life. Get out your phone and call 911. I’ll wait with him.”

  “You should worry about 911 for yourself. Have you got Mrs. Sullivan’s money?”

  I sighed. “I ran from you, genius. What do you think?”

  Pablo glared. “I think you act stupid and talk stupid. I’m not somebody you want to piss off.”

  The guy with no eyes sniffed and pivoted back and forth. “They are coming! We have to take cover!”

  Pablo took a second look at him, and then, a little curious despite himself, asked, “Is he nuts?”

  “It seems like it,” I said.

  “What happened to him?”

  “I don’t know. He was like this when I found-”

  “Where is there a house?” the old man asked. “You need to get me inside.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Pablo said. “I can’t believe you stopped to help… well, him. But that’s your tough luck.”

  “Look,” I said, “I’m going to get the money.”

  “You definitely are,” Pablo said. “Because I’m going to give you some motivation.” He unzipped the gym bag.

  I rushed him. No point waiting for him to get the tire iron in his hand.

  But I didn’t make it that far. Take the shivering note of a gong. Mix it with the throbbing you get in your chest when you stand right in front of the speakers at a rock concert. That’s the way I suddenly felt inside. It started in my arms and shoulders, where the old man’s zap had stabbed through me, and vibrated through my whole body. It made me dizzy, and I fell on my face.

  By the time the dizziness passed, Pablo was standing over me with the tire iron raised. I gathered myself to lunge at his legs and tackle him.

  His voice shrill, the old man wailed, “They’re here! Look and you’ll see!”

  Pablo and I didn’t look. We were intent on one another. But we didn’t have to. Something swooped right between us.

  It was a woman as tall as my hand is long, with the wings of an insect. But not cute like Tinkerbell. Black eyes bulged from a long, narrow head that reminded me of an Afghan hound. The toes and fingers looked like talons, and the whirring wings were the color of filth, like a roach’s.

  Pablo yelped and jumped back, which probably saved me from a dented skull. I flinched, too. Another little flying woman thrummed past me on the right. When I jerked around in her direction, I saw that there were at least four of them, all whirling around Pablo, No Eyes, and me. Then they shot off into the dark.

  We were all quiet for a second. Until, his voice an octave higher than before, Pablo said, “Moths.”

  Hoping it would keep me from sounding as spooked as he did, I took a deep breath. “Whatever they were, they’re gone.”

  “No!” the old man said. “Idiots! Why aren’t you listening to me? Those were scouts. Now that they’ve found me, they’ll bring the others.” He was right. I heard “the others” buzzing. Flying in a swarm, they sounded like a hive of angry wasps.

  “Screw this,” Pablo said. Abandoning his gym bag where he’d dropped it on the ground, he turned around and ran.

  I wanted to run right after him. Instead, I grabbed the old man and hauled him toward an abandoned house, with graffiti-covered plywood nailed across the windows. It was closer than the house with the TV glowing through the window, and I didn’t think we had a lot of time.

  I was right. The buzzing grew louder, and then something bumped down on top of my head, not quite hard enough to hurt. I felt a tug as the fairy grabbed a handful of my hair. Then a little clawed hand reached down over my forehead for my right eye.

  I snatched and yanked the fairy off my head, losing a few strands of hair in the process. She was upside down in my hand, but that didn’t stop her from ripping gashes in my skin. Bending her legs in a way no human could, she managed to use her feet as well as her hands.

  Yelling, I simultaneously squeezed her and shook her like a dog shakes a rat. She went limp.

  As I dropped her, a dozen of her sisters hurtled at me. Behind them droned fifty or a hundred more.

  They were too close, and there were too many. There was nothing I could do to stop them from rat-packing the old guy and me. But I needed to. Needed it like I’d never needed anything before.

  I felt another vibration ringing through my insides. But this time, it didn’t make me dazed or dizzy. Instead, I felt it shoot out of me, at the creatures I was frantic to push away.

  The two or three fairies in the lead smashed into something I couldn’t see, like bugs splashing against a windshield. Their sisters stopped short and flitted back and forth. They seemed to be looking for a hole in the invisible wall.

  Or waiting for it to fall down. As I suddenly sensed it would, and in just a few more seconds.

  I’d let go of the old man to deal with the fairy that had landed on my head. I turned, looking for him, and found him on his knees with the twisted body of one tiny woman in his hand and a couple more crumpled in the grass around him. His ears dripped blood from cuts and scratches.

  I realized the fairies had a system for hurting someone. First, they took his sight, and then they went after his hearing. The idea might have made me sick to my stomach, except that there wasn’t time.

  I grabbed the old man and dragged him stumbling up the two concrete steps onto the stoop of the vacant house. The door didn’t have plywood nailed over it, but it was locked. I kicked it. The latch held.

  The buzzing behind me got louder. I didn’t have to look to know there was nothing holding the fairies back anymore.

  Bellowing, I booted the door again. It flew open and banged against the wall.

  I lunged inside, jerked No Eyes in after me, slammed the door, and leaned against it. Since I’d broken it, I needed to brace it to keep it shut.

  After a second, the fairies started pushing from the other side. Even with a bunch of them working together, they weren’t strong enough to shift the door and my weight, but in the long run, it probably wouldn’t matter. There was almost certainly a way for small creatures to slip inside such an old, dilapidated wooden building. They just had to hunt around and find it.

  And I wouldn’t even see them coming. With the door shut, it was black inside.

  I put my back to the door, then examined my bloody, throbbing hand by touch. The cuts weren’t deep. I guessed that was something.

  “What are those things?” I asked.

  “Brownwings,” panted the old man. Judging from the sound of his voice, he was still just a step or two away from me. “Lesser fey.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Well, there isn’t time to explain. We have to try to escape.”

  “I’m all for that. How did you get away from them before?”

  “I had a… well, call it a weapon. But it was like a gun with only one bullet.”

  “And you can’t reload?”

  A buzzing and pattering came from overhead. The brownwings were prowling around on the roof.

  “No,” the old man said. “The imp only had to perform one service to earn its freedom. And without my eyes, it’s difficult to use my other talents.”

  There was something funny about the way he was talking, and after a second, I figured out what it was. “You don’t sound very upset about losing your eyes just for their own sake.”

  “They’ll grow back,” he said. “But not in time to help me here.”

  “Mine won’t,” I said. “Not if the brownwings get me. That… thing that happened before and held them back. Can you make it happen again?”


  “What ‘thing?’”

  I realized that, since he hadn’t seen the fairies smack into the invisible wall, he thought we’d simply outrun them. And I didn’t know how to explain. But I figured I had to try.

  “When my phone blew up-when you made it blow up-I felt like I was shaking inside. Then, when all the brownwings were about to catch up with us, I felt the same thing again. For a while after that, they couldn’t get at us. It was like there was something in their way.”

  “A ward!” the old man said. “But none of the others would help me. We haven’t cut any deals. And you say you felt something?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hold still.”

  After a second, something bumped my chin. Startled, I jerked back despite his warning. He made an impatient spitting sound, and then his hands fumbled their way around my face, like he was trying to figure out how I looked. Meanwhile, he snorted and snuffled. It all made my skin crawl-he felt as dirty as he looked and smelled-but I didn’t push him away.

  Finally he said, “You’re one of us.”

  “One of who?” I asked. The plywood covering a window creaked as the brownwings pried at it.

  “One of the Old People,” he said. “Or at least you have a drop or two of our blood. And when I used your arms to aim my jinx, I sparked you.”

  “I don’t know what any of that means.”

  “I woke your gifts. Which you then used to hold the brownwings back.”

  “I did that?” Even though that was more or less how it had felt at the time, it was still a hard idea to wrap my head around.

  “Yes, and it was the only work you’ve performed tonight. You’re young and strong. Maybe you can do more.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I know! Stop telling me and listen! Remember the shaky sensation you told me about. Make yourself feel it again.”

  I tried, essentially by imagining as hard as I could. It started a kind of echo shivering inside me. I wasn’t sure if it was all just memory and wanting or something more.

  “Maybe I’ve got it,” I said.